


One of your Own Kind

by Happyvictory29



Category: Penelope (2006), 달의 연인-보보경심 려 | Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (TV)
Genre: Curse Breaking, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-01 14:59:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyvictory29/pseuds/Happyvictory29
Summary: A Penelope!AU.Wang So has lived his life in preparation to be married. He's the perfect candidate for a husband. He's smart and he's rich and he's full of kindness. There's only one problem. He's cursed with the face of a pig and no woman wants to marry him.Go Ha Jin works late nights at a seedy bar trying to pay off her accumulated debts. She's mistaken for someone else and gets tangled up in a lie and deal that's more than she bargained for.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> My desktop broke on me and I lamented my loss by watching Penelope ALOT. I now have a brand new laptop and, in celebration, I'm giving you all a Penelope!AU with Wang So as Penelope and Go Ha Jin as Johnny. 
> 
> if you haven't watched Penelope starring Christina Ricci and James McAvoy. _I highly recommend it._

Once upon a time, a prince was born, celebrated and welcomed into the royal family as one foretold by the stars that he would one day rule as king. 

But as the years passed, as his mother, the Queen, sought more power and more riches, she tossed the young prince aside. In him, she only saw her weakness, her mistakes, her flaws. She sent him away to a family that only beat, scarred, and starved the boy.

The young prince tried his hardest to survive, but, in the end, it was futile, and he succumbed to death’s embrace.

The prince’s uncle, a highly sought after shaman, who advocated for his return many times, cursed the Queen and her clan for abandoning a child who had done nothing wrong nor warranted such cruelty. He wanted her and the rest of the court to feel pain of abandonment and rejection that his nephew must have felt in those days before his death.

“The next son born unto the Wang family will be born with the face of the pig and only when one of your own kind claims him as their own, ‘til death do they part, will this curse be broken!”

The family scoffed at him, but fear still rose in their hearts.

As fate would have it, the next child born unto the family was a daughter. And then another daughter. And then another until the Wangs fell from favor for not being able to produce a male heir.

Still, though, the family kept their fortune, seeking favor through other clans and then through investment ventures when the opportunities arose. They clung to their money, tracked their lineage by the many matriarchs their family produced, and, as the generations passed, they sniffed their noses at the supposed curse placed upon them. It was nothing more than a far-fetched fairy tale.

Until, that is, Wang So was born.

His mother and father were top CEO’s in their industry. A power couple to be envied, a couple that had dipped their fingers and toes into every possible sector they could buy. They adored the media, inviting reporters into of their lives. Their courting, their wedding, their honeymoon, and, then, their first child, a boy. The first son in a long line of daughters. It was expected to be another happy day in a long line of exciting and prosperous events.

Shin Myeong labored for hours, Geun dabbing the sweat from her brow and the doctors telling her to push at just the right moments. When baby So slid from the womb, he did not cry as other babies did. He squealed. And when Shin Myeong saw him for the first time, she did not weep tears of joy. She screamed at the sight of his face and promptly fainted. And as Geun took hold of his child, he realized that the foretold curse was not fiction, but, in fact, very, very real.

For Wang So had been born with the nose and ears of a pig.


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He grabbed his book and threw himself into his chair. He couldn’t find the page he left off on. “All I did was show her my face. Isn’t that how it usually works when you’re planning on marrying or… or … dating even? Isn’t that what normal people do?”

Wang So paid no attention to the words spoken by the woman on the other side of the two-way mirror. She was pretty. Yes. But, then again, so were all the rest. All rich. All well dressed. All come for the promise of an easily obtained husband and his rather large inheritance. 

“I know what it’s like to be trapped.” 

That caught his attention. He stopped reading his book, his finger frozen at the corner. He considered her; the way her fingers gripped the mantle, the way she bit her lip and not a speck of lipstick rubbed on her teeth, the way her eyebrows raised in a beseeching manner. How sincere could her words be, he wondered. How different was she from the rest to understand his isolation and loneliness, he cared to know. 

“You do?” 

“Of course. As a woman, society has defined what roles I am able to play. I’m not able to step one foot out my door without being judged for my outfit, my makeup, my choice of handbag.” So rolled his eyes, but, she could not see his reaction, so she continued with her pleading. “If I can rise above others’ judgments, the curse of being a woman in modern society, then, surely… surely, I can break the curse that holds you?” 

She smiled at the mirror, searching for some hole that would give him away. So set down his book with a sigh. He had seen dozens of smiles that looked just like hers, always practiced and perfect and never quite reaching the eyes. 

“Let me in, Wang So. Let me into your world. I want to see you.” 

She was no different, he decided.  _ Better to get this over and done with _ , he thought. 

He walked over to the door leading into the study, hidden by a bookshelf on the other side. He took one slow breath, knowing that what was to come would hurt him again. No matter how many times it happened, he never got used to it. He pushed on the door and revealed himself to Hwangbo Yeonhwa. 

“Hello,” he said, a crooked smile on his face. 

Her face dropped faster than a speeding bullet. “Holy shit,” she whispered, her hand coming up to her mouth like something dirty found its way in. “You.. you’re a….” 

And she screamed.

It bounced off the walls in that tiny room and So cringed, covering his ears to muffle her hysteria. She bolted from the room, a heel flinging off as she did so, and a high-pitched “He’s a pig!” trailed behind her over and over as she flew from the home and away from Wang So. 

“Just as I thought,” he sighed. If he was counting correctly, she was the 31st woman to run from him, from his face that looked like a pig’s, since he turned 18. Seven years of them screaming at and being terrified of his hideous face. Seven years of them being legally gagged into secrecy. Seven years of his mother wasting his time trying to break a curse that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Because there was no woman of noble birth, from an upstanding, rich family, that would be willing to marry him and break his curse. He picked up the abandoned shoe and threw it in the trash, wishing he could throw himself away with it. 

His mother came screeching into the room. “Why would you come out? She was doing so well. She could have been the one!”   


“If she was the one, eomoni, then she wouldn’t have ran, don’t you think?” 

“Oh, posh,” she said, dismissing his words with a wave of her hand. He tried to escape back into his room, but she followed behind. “You came out with no warning. She was… she was just startled. You have to ease people into these things.”  

He grabbed his book and threw himself into his chair. He couldn’t find the page he left off on. “All I did was show her my face. Isn’t that how it usually works when you’re planning on marrying or… or … dating even? Isn’t that what  _ normal  _ people do?”  

“Oh… you,” she said, coming to sit on the edge of his chair. He looked up at her, but she looked away. She didn’t like to look at him for a long time. “One day the real you, not this you with that horrid nose, but the real, normal you will shine bright. But we can’t have normal until we break the curse. So, until then, we’ll just have to keep trying.”

“Sure, eomoni.” The window near him taunted him with a city skyline he’d never be able to see up close because he knew there would never be just one woman to look at him as a human being instead of a beast.

 

* * *

 

Yeonhwa screeched at the police officer. “You don’t understand. They are luring innocent women into their household to sacrifice to that … that vile beast. A monster lives in that house!” 

The officer sighed again, resting his head on one hand and scrolling through files with his other.  “And he has pig snout, you say? Stands taller than ten feet?” 

“And fangs! There were definitely fangs!” Several people began to snicker, with more than a few recording the interaction with their phones, but Yeon Hwa took no notice.

He yawned. “Ma’am, I hear you. We’ll get right on it.” 

She slammed her hands on the desk. “Don’t you know who I am? I am Hwangbo Yeonhwa, next in line for chairmen of the board. I demand you to go to the Wang household immediately and arrest them all for coercion, kidnapping, and possibly murder.” 

The officer sneered at her. He stood and leaned over the table that separated them. Yeonhwa shrunk in her chair as he asserted the authority his badge granted him. “You listen here, Hwangbo Yeonhwa, I don’t care if you’re the physical manifestation of God himself, you don’t get to come in here and tell me ludicrous stories and threaten me with your pockets. So, you will live this precinct right now or I will throw you in a holding cell for contempt.” 

Yeonhwa swallowed back her rage. “I understand, officer.” 

He waved her off. “Get out of my sight.” 

It wasn’t any better for her when she got home. 

Her family was gathered in the study watching the news with their hands covering their mouths and their brows furrowed with distaste and embarrassment.  She flung herself onto the couch between her mother and brother, paying no mind to the screen. 

“Did another celebrity do something stupid?” 

Wook turned to her in disbelief. “Yes,” he nearly shouted. “You did!” 

“What?” she asked, confused. And then she focused on the television to see herself yelling at the police officer she had seen only an hour before. The headlines flashed:  **HWANGBO HEIRESS INSANE - HALLUCINATIONS OF TERRIFYING PIG-FACED MAN.** She clamored off the couch and shut the TV off. She turned the face the disappointment head on. “I can explain.” 

 

* * *

 

Go Ha Jin slammed her hand down on the blaring alarm. She blinked her eyes open, wiped the drool from her chin. She sat up, stretching her limbs, and caught her reflection in the muddied mirror opposite her. Her red lipstick had smeared across her cheek, her mascara smudged and gave her the look of a raccoon, her once sleek hair knotted into a nest on the side of her head. She grabbed a ratty t-shirt and threw it at the mirror, covering the wretched image. 

She smelled the stale cigarette smoke, alcohol, and dried vomit drifting around her. She gagged and took stock of the damage. Her tight black dress had twisted and bunched around her torso. She saw a stain crusted at the neckline and picked at it with her finger. Her strap hung limply off her shoulder and she remembered a patron tore it trying to save himself from falling over. 

“Get yourself together, Go Ha Jin,” she croaked at herself. 

She dragged herself to the bathroom, kicking aside the empty bottles of soju and empty ramen bowls. She stripped the garment from her body and stepped into the shower, not caring that the water froze her before heating her. Only caring that she was able to cleanse herself, of the smell and the horrors she endured.

“Get through another night. You can do it. For the money, you can get through another night.” 


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I know, I know. It's not my face, it's my great-great-great-grandfather's face and he's not me and I'm not him and I'm not me._ -Penelope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Sexual harassment towards the end.

So’s mother laid with her cheek pressed into the table, her face scrunched in an over pronounced pout as she groaned uselessly to herself. Behind her on the muted television, the story of the crazy HwangBo heiress played over and over. What treatment will the family get for her? What does this mean for her position on the board? Will her brother, HwangBo Wook, receive the inheritance before she does?

So tried to look away, wanted to look away, but the video numbed him. It was the first time he’d heard himself described in such a vivid manner. He matched the words he memorized to the movements of YeonHwa’s lips. Is that how every woman who ran from him had seen?

Ji Mong, their butler, sidled over, his mouth in a punctuated frown, and turned the television off. The black screen unparalyzed him. Ji Mong winked at him and, from his pocket, pulled his favorite honey pastry out, wrapped fresh from his favorite bakery he’d never been to. So smiled, grateful that someone in the house knew how to lift his spirits, if only by a fraction.

“She liked you,” his mother mumbled to the wood. “I’m sure of it. Deep, deep down, I’m sure she liked you.”

So rolled his eyes. “Sure, eomoni. I’m sure deep, deep, deep down in the recesses of her heart, buried underneath the notion that I’m a hideous creature and below the impression that I’m eating young girls as some kind of blood sacrifice, she really did like me.”

She lifted her head, eyebrow cocked and a knowing glint in her eye. He hated that glint. “I’m glad you finally see it my way.”

So scoffed, his appetite lost and squishing the pastry in his fist. “I’m going to my room. Let me know when you’ve given up on the marriage thing. I have.”

The chair scraped and toppled as he stood. His mother grabbed his wrist and he willed himself not to look at her. “Now, now. No need to be so pouty. This is a minor setback. I’ll call Woo Hee and she can bring us a fresh batch of girls.”

He caught his reflection in the window and frowned at his nose; at the ridges stepped up the bridge, at the rounded and flattened cartilage around his nostrils, at the way it turned up. He lifted his hand, covering it and, for a moment, he could imagine that he was normal. He swallowed away the thought and he dropped his hand; his nose still blazoned across his face like it always has.

“Okay, eomoni,” he said, turning back to her. “But let’s try something new.”

 

* * *

 

“PARK SOO KYUNG!”

The reporter grumbled into the editor’s office; a grown man having to shuffle to the whims to his only child. “Yes, Soon Deok-ssi.”

“What is your job?”

He clenched his jaw, his mouth struggling to find the line between smile and scowl. “Obituaries.”

She tossed a paper at his feet; his vision filled with red pen over black ink. “Then what is this? Stick to obituaries, Reporter Park. Don’t bring me tired articles.”

She went back to her computer, the click click click of her mouse grating on his ears.

“Was there anything else?” he asked, the words grinding against his teeth.

Soon Deok sighed, looking up with a pout. She mouthed, “I’m sorry, appa.”

He shook his head in defeat. He could never win against his headstrong daughter and boss. He picked up the paper by his feet, crumpling it in his fist, and threw it in the trash.

The trek to his office seemed twice as long, the hallway taunting him by stretching and keeping him in a limbo. He itched the scar by his mouth and, not for the first time, cursed Wang Shin Myeong for turning him from a lauded and sought after reporter into a fraud, a joke not even wanted by the tabloids. Not even his daughter would give him a chance after twenty-four years nor would she claim him as her father in the workplace. He couldn’t even blame her for that; he didn’t want her to lose her credibility after she had worked so hard to get her position.

All he wanted, all he had needed was one picture of that ―

“Give me a retraction and take down those videos!” A woman clad head to toe in designer fashion screamed past him, dragged by two security guards. “I will sue all of you for defamation of character!”

Soo Kyung shook his head, at least he was not the only one in the bottom of a barrel.

“I’m not crazy,” she whined. “I’m telling you he had a pig face.”

He halted and turned. “Wait a second,” he called as the guards began to shut the door in her face. “I, uh, I believe she’s with me.”

She ripped through the guards, flipping her hair haughtily and straightening herself. In just those seconds, she regained an air of power and money. “Finally. Someone with some sense. You,” she scrunched her nose at him, “mangy man, we can speak in your office.”

He scowled and she ignored him, her heels clacking with presumption as she passed him. He followed along behind her, wondering if she knew she was heading in the wrong direction. She went into the employee lounge, inspecting everything with a distaste.

“Your office is shoddy at best, but it will do,” she said, making herself comfortable on the couch.

“This isn’t my office. You passed it already.”

Her lips formed a line and her cheeks flamed. “Oh.”

He tsked at her and headed to his office. When she entered, he could see the young, scared girl underneath the entitlement and almost felt pity for her. “Miss…”

“Hwangbo YeonHwa.”

“Miss Hwangbo, tell me more about this pig faced man.”

She scooted forward in her chair, eyes wide. “You believe me?”

He steepled his hands. “Tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know.”

The gleam in her eyes was wicked. “There were rumors amongst the rich, that the Wang family was cursed. Of course, we all thought it was fodder for the poor folk, you know, trying to find flaws where there were none. I thought they were doing it for suspense of it all and, really, with the amount of money attached to their name, I thought I could overlook whatever the supposed curse was. But, um… what was your name?”

“Park.”

“Right, Reporter Park, their son is a hideous man with a pig face and fangs and-” she shuddered “- he’s what nightmares are made of. We have to expose this family, their corruption. More importantly, I need the world to know that I am not crazy. Because I am not. That damned curse is real.”

Soo Kyung slapped his hand on the table, a triumphant hollar echoing off the walls. “I knew it. Do you see this?” He pointed at the scar by his lips, one that elongated the corner far into his cheek, marred by stitches and sagged by time  “That monster did this to me.”

“The son?”

He scoffed. “The mother. Hideous person. She still gives me nightmares, but, her son, I only caught a glimpse of him when he was a baby. I gave up part of my cheek for that story and, in the end the Wang family told everyone the baby died after that and my story went with it. I was sued for trespassing and emotional distress and lost all my credibility as a journalist. I never believed for a second that baby died and, now, we can expose them together. We just need one picture.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes alight.

“Can you get back in?”

Her eyes dimmed, the corners of her lips dipped down, and she fell back into the chair, deflated and almost small. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I can’t go back in there. That’s asking too much.”

He clucked his tongue. “Okay… well, we need to find someone who can go in.”

“Well,” she said, squinting her eyes in thought, “they only allow descendents of noble blood, old money. It’s part of the curse thing and I don’t think any of them would help us either. It’s not like they need the money.”

“No,” he said, and an idea sparked, a name shining like a beacon. “No, but down and out heiresses do.”

 

* * *

 

“Yah,” Ha Jin said, half-dragging, half-carrying her companion, “you can’t keep doing this. The boss is going to get angry.”

“Ha Jin-ah,” she slurred, smacking Ha Jin’s cheek in what she probably thought was a caress, “they offered me drinks. And a teeny teeny meeny ‘mount of coke. I couldn’t say no.”

Ha Jin adjusted the girl that had slipped so far down her waist, pulling on her dress and revealing more of her cleavage to the patronage. A man stroked her breast as he passed. She dismissed it; she couldn’t get fired. “I’m putting you in a cab. I’ll cover for you.”

Putting her co-worker in the cab was easier said than done. She kept wanting to go back for a smidge more; of alcohol, drugs, or companionship, Ha Jin didn’t want to know. She shivered watching the cab inch farther away from her. She would’ve stayed, maybe even make a run for it, but the boss was glaring at her through the window and beckoned her with a finger. _For the money_ , was all she told herself when each step seemed harder than the last.

The boss mouthed to her, _Get to work_ , and nodded to a man across the bar. It was the one that had touched her earlier. He smiled lasciviously, downed a shot, and then stumbled towards her. She plastered on a smile as he neared.

“Oppa,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize. He fell against her and his hands roamed over her shoulders and down her back. He grabbed her ass and she tried to push him off, but he was heavy. His advances made her sicker than the stench of alcohol.

“I believe this young woman owes me a drink,” said a different voice. Older, raspier, with an edge. He pulled the man off. The drunken man looked between the two of them and just shrugged; she wasn’t worth it. She sent him a grateful smile and he winked back. In the pulse of of the lights, she noticed his mouth looked unnaturally stretched at the corner. 

“Um, thanks.” She tugged on her dress. “You wanted a drink?”

He chuckled. His elongated smile made him look sinister, but there was a kindness to his eyes that made her relax. “I actually came here looking to speak with you.”

 _Debt collector,_ she thought. She straightened. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I know you. I researched a bit and it seems you squandered your family’s fortune to cushion your drug and alcohol addiction in just a few short years.”

 _Not a debt collector._ And she laughed, clutching at her stomach and her face red, from relief and amusement.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he said, with a raised eyebrow and a tilt of his head.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Look, ahjussi, that’s quite a tale you’ve spun, but you have the wrong girl. If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

She turned, heading down the hallway.

“Is five thousand dollars worth your while, Hae Soo-ssi?”

And she halted. At the number and at the name. She bit her lip, doing the math in her head, and then slowly turned back to him. “I’m listening.”


End file.
